It is well known that pests such as insects and acarids can cause significant damage to crops grown in agriculture, resulting in loss of millions of dollars of value associated with a given crop.
Although there are many orders of insects that can cause significant crop damage, insects, for example, of the suborder “Homoptera” are of major importance. The suborder Homoptera includes, for example, aphids, leafhoppers, cicadas, whiteflies, and mealybugs, to name a few. Homopterans have piercing/sucking mouthparts, enabling them to feed by withdrawing sap from vascular plants. Insect damage from homopterans is manifested in several different ways, other than damage caused by direct feeding. For example, many species excrete honeydew, a sticky waste product that adheres to plants upon which the insect feeds and lives. Honeydew alone causes cosmetic injury to crop plants. Sooty molds will often grow on honeydew, making food products or ornamental plants look unappealing, thereby reducing their cosmetic and economic value. Some homopterans have toxic saliva that is injected into plants while they are feeding. The saliva can cause plant damage through disfigurement and in some instances plant death. Homopterans can also vector disease-causing pathogens. Unlike direct damage, it does not take a large number of disease-vectoring insects to cause considerable damage to crop plants.
Acarids, for example, the two-spotted spider mite and the bean spider mite are serious pests for many vegetable crops including tomatoes, beans and cucurbits. These mites, as well as other acarids also cause damage to a wide variety of other vegetables, fruits and ornamental plants all over the world. Spider mites cause serious economic damage to vegetable crops by feeding on foliage, the effect of which is to reduce photosynthesis, transpiration, leaf chlorophyll content and leaf nitrogen, and increase transpiration. Mite feeding can reduce bud formation and fruit size, as well as cause poor fruit finish and color development.
Accordingly, there is a continuing demand for new insecticides for control of, for example, Homoptera and other orders of insects; as well as new acaricides, that are safer, more effective, and less costly for use on crops such as those set forth above, and also for use on wheat, corn, soybeans, potatoes, and cotton to name a few. For crop protection, insecticides and acaricides are desired which can control the insects and acarids without damaging the crops, and have no deleterious effects to mammals and other living organisms.
A paper presented by Dow AgroSciences at the 220th meeting of the American Chemical Society in 2000, entitled ‘Restricted Analog Design Strategies of Arylalkylimidazole Insecticides” discloses a class of imidazoles having insecticidal activity against cotton aphid, of which the following is an example:

A paper presented in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry (1986, 29, 463-467) discloses a class of imidazoline derivatives, of the following structure, having biological effects at α1 and α2 adrenergic receptors:
where X is hydroxy, or methoxy, and n is 0 to 3. There is no disclosure or suggestion that any of the adrenergic receptors have insecticidal activity.